Professional lighting applications (e.g. in the entertainment sector, for uses such as the lighting of theaters, cinemas, stages or discotheques) and the definable uses, with reference to lighting, such as semi-professional uses (e.g. hotels, restaurants, conference rooms, etc.) or non-professional uses (for example, some domestic applications or small meeting rooms), may have particular application needs, not found in lighting applications of the current type.
For example, it is possible to envisage that a lighting device or fixture is controlled by means of commands (called “cues”) intended to define its operating settings, e.g. regarding parameters such as color, brightness level or dimming, use of screens known as “gobo”, application frequency of stroboscopic effects, orientation or pan-tilt, etc.
These effects and related controls are developed by light designers and tested before use, e.g. before a show, with a time-consuming activity, which may take months; during the show, the aforesaid lighting controls are transferred to the devices installed at the event location.
The times and costs associated with these activities, and the related requirements in terms of technical knowledge, are acceptable for professional shows but may be difficult to comply with for applications intended for the consumer market, either for cost reasons or due to the amateur profile of the final users.
Solutions adopted to meet these non-professional needs (e.g. domestic environments, private parties, small entertainment venues, disc-jockey activities, minor local festivals) are mainly of two types:
use of predefined commands or cues, in particular with regard to controlled lighting parameters,
pre-deterministic sound-light settings, with an algorithm able to define lighting commands related to the occurrence of an event or a sequence of audio and/or video events.
Three possible examples related to this second solution may be:
sound sequences→light synchronized with the music, with the lighting device(s) synchronized with the sound: synchronization may be implemented, for example, by processing the audio signal;
video sequences→light synchronized with the video signal, with the lighting device(s) synchronized with the video signal: synchronization may be implemented, for example, by processing the video signal (e.g. via HDMI signal);
sound+video sequences→light: a combination of the two previous cases.
Documents such as, for example, EP 3 217 769 A describe techniques for controlling at least one operating parameter of lighting sources according to at least one lighting sequence, as a function of a set of temporal encoding data coupled to the sequence.
A limitation of these solutions, which cannot count on the experience of the light designer, with his “human touch”, may be seen in the absence of artistic connotation. These are solutions based on a pre-deterministic approach that, by its nature, may only take into account a limited amount of sound and video combinations.
It is therefore desirable to have additional improved solutions.